So I wasn't the only one to notice. He repeated himself about half a dozen times in a row.Zaul2010 said:
Jimquisition: Beneath A Steel Skyrim
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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You might have a valid point if there weren't so many developers creating what amount to very tiny, very short games, especially when it comes to things like the single player modes in various shooter titles.
Large, open world games usually root you to a few specific locations. Most players are going to be just as familiar with places like Whiterun or perhaps even more specifically Breezehome in Skyrim as the familiar elements of adventure games.
To me at least it seems almost like shilling for an industry that wants to produce short games, due to it being cheaper, and of course the faster people are done the quicker they go looking for their next fix. An offhanded way of saying "Skyrim is great, but don't get used to it". A linear game with only four levels/enviroments? That sounds almost exactly like what people are complaining about the industry increasingly churning out accross a variety of generes.
Don't get me wrong, I miss the era of Adventure games too, though for me it would probably be things like "Quest For Glory" (or Hero Quest originally), but at the same time I don't think heading back in that direction is a good idea. Especially seeing as with the advancement of technology the solution to puzzles is a quick rage-gasm and trip to Gamefaqs away. The community and gaming enviroment that made those games great originally doesn't really exist anymore, your not going to spend 10 hours trying to puzzle through how to solve a counter-intuitive puzzle, and say get stuck looking at a hole in the ground and using items on it via a text parsor and finding amusing developer comments from people who knew you were going to try that... when that whole has no real purpose.
Large, open world games usually root you to a few specific locations. Most players are going to be just as familiar with places like Whiterun or perhaps even more specifically Breezehome in Skyrim as the familiar elements of adventure games.
To me at least it seems almost like shilling for an industry that wants to produce short games, due to it being cheaper, and of course the faster people are done the quicker they go looking for their next fix. An offhanded way of saying "Skyrim is great, but don't get used to it". A linear game with only four levels/enviroments? That sounds almost exactly like what people are complaining about the industry increasingly churning out accross a variety of generes.
Don't get me wrong, I miss the era of Adventure games too, though for me it would probably be things like "Quest For Glory" (or Hero Quest originally), but at the same time I don't think heading back in that direction is a good idea. Especially seeing as with the advancement of technology the solution to puzzles is a quick rage-gasm and trip to Gamefaqs away. The community and gaming enviroment that made those games great originally doesn't really exist anymore, your not going to spend 10 hours trying to puzzle through how to solve a counter-intuitive puzzle, and say get stuck looking at a hole in the ground and using items on it via a text parsor and finding amusing developer comments from people who knew you were going to try that... when that whole has no real purpose.
Actually Jim, I have seen many excellent modern point and click adventure games. Just not made by companies. They are on the web.
Just like how the web has Angry Birds type games that are FAR better than Angry Birds itself, internet game sites have some of the most interesting, thought provoking Point an Click experiences out there.
Just like how the web has Angry Birds type games that are FAR better than Angry Birds itself, internet game sites have some of the most interesting, thought provoking Point an Click experiences out there.
Sgt. Sykes said:
Doom 3? Really? I haven't felt your "mood". It's one of the few games that I haven't finished because it was too boring. Then again, everyone has a different experience.
However, Max Payne on the other end....
A lot of what he talked about in this episode reminded me of Vagrant Story and why I enjoyed that game so much.
Maybe I misunderstood the entirety of the video and Jim Sterling is truly beyond me, but I think that's the point he was getting at. Both games are engrossing, but there isn't some super secret forbidden technique that automatically makes int quality = good + 1. There isn't a single other art form where the quality of a work is determined quantitatively, yet that's what both developers and gamers try to do.Djinn8 said:
Even in a form of art that has the structure of music, all that scales and theory can do is to tell you how not to make mechanical errors. They can't tell you what to write or how to not suck. How often do you sit down and listen to scales? Most people wouldn't, because it's pretty damn boring. In games however, we somehow seem to get the illusion that "if we can just find the right scale, we just have to go up it and we have the perfect game." Bullshit.
Gamers ***** all the time about how our medium isn't taken seriously. Well, if you want to be taken seriously, don't try to sell "the perfect song," and don't try to make a chord that you can put into any song to make it instantly good.
If you want a game that's obsessive about letting you explore a limited space, check out the HL2 mod "Minerva: Metastasis". Almost all of the maps in that game are tiny, but give you different challenges within the same space. The first chapter, for instance, basically takes you in concentric circles around the island, until you end up going down at the middle.
Bastion comes to mind as a recent game that pulled this off, at least in a sense. Sure you traveled around the world but the important aspect was coming back and rebuilding the Bastion. There's also the fact that there were only four characters, and of them only one had any real dialogue. I grew so attached to them that it was what influenced the decisions I made at the end of the game. I don't think I've genuinely liked a video game character that much since GLaDOS.
For anyone interested, you can download Beneath a Steel Sky for free from GOG and ScummVM's site. While you're roaming GOG for a bit, be sure to grab yourself a free copy of Empire Earth before tomorrow.
I've been playing all sorts of genres that aren't my favorites, like point & click adventures and I've been having a blast. Last summer, I grabbed Broken Sword 1 for free when they offered it at GOG and they also offer the original game emulated in ScummVM and I'd say I prefer the pixelated original over the crisper new version. Also, there's Dragonsphere, wich I haven't played much, but looks interesting enough, also because it's made by Microprose. Then there's Ben There, Dan That, wich is quite funny, along with it's sequel, Time Gentlemen, Please!.
So yeah, I'm in a strict diet of point & click adventures at the moment.
I've been playing all sorts of genres that aren't my favorites, like point & click adventures and I've been having a blast. Last summer, I grabbed Broken Sword 1 for free when they offered it at GOG and they also offer the original game emulated in ScummVM and I'd say I prefer the pixelated original over the crisper new version. Also, there's Dragonsphere, wich I haven't played much, but looks interesting enough, also because it's made by Microprose. Then there's Ben There, Dan That, wich is quite funny, along with it's sequel, Time Gentlemen, Please!.
So yeah, I'm in a strict diet of point & click adventures at the moment.
Because Jim talked about Beneath A Steel Sky on of my favorite games games ever my opinion of him has increased. Also Gabriel Knight is worth mentioning, I have yet to play the sequels because I hate FMV.
Also as far as games with small enviroments go I think we need a Die Hard game, that seems like a safe gamble because it could make for a survival, shooter, stealth thing.
Also Dark/Demons Souls pull off the familiarity very well.
Also as far as games with small enviroments go I think we need a Die Hard game, that seems like a safe gamble because it could make for a survival, shooter, stealth thing.
Also Dark/Demons Souls pull off the familiarity very well.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for me, was the best of the trilogy because it didn't involve floundering around the globe. A environment that evolves in tandem with the player.
When the other two games dash around the world, an element is lost - because the character we are roleplaying is acting without our permission, and the immersion is lost.
The issue is, a lot of the audience of gaming now are "hit and run" players. Not in for the long haul and primarily interested in all or nothing set pieces and sparkling locations. There is a reason gaming has evolved in this manner.
Not to mention the fact that it is a lot easier for a developer to concentrate on bells and whistles as opposed to fleshing out a single location.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for me, was the best of the trilogy because it didn't involve floundering around the globe. A environment that evolves in tandem with the player.
When the other two games dash around the world, an element is lost - because the character we are roleplaying is acting without our permission, and the immersion is lost.
The issue is, a lot of the audience of gaming now are "hit and run" players. Not in for the long haul and primarily interested in all or nothing set pieces and sparkling locations. There is a reason gaming has evolved in this manner.
Not to mention the fact that it is a lot easier for a developer to concentrate on bells and whistles as opposed to fleshing out a single location.
I'm surprised the game is praised by so many people. I was very disappointed by Beneath a Steel sky. It starts out promising to be a brooding, dark, cyberpunk adventure and then becomes a parody of itself just a few screens into the game. You mostly use and interact with so primitive tools and the settings are so uninspired it might as well been set in the 1980's instead of the future. Some of the puzzles intentionally confuse you in cheap ways (e.g. there is a spot where it makes sense to "cut" something and you find some scissors, but the scissors are used for something entirely different). And also the game is very short.
I played it through, and it was an entirely forgettable experience. It's miles away from truly great point and click adventures, such as Fate of Atlantis.
I played it through, and it was an entirely forgettable experience. It's miles away from truly great point and click adventures, such as Fate of Atlantis.
You know, i'd have thought that Jim would have been all over the fact that Skyrim is horribly broken, the fact that its sales success is like an invitation for devs to release games in a terrible state then fix them later, and the fact that despite having made such a buggy game, so buggy that on one platform the game literally self destructs the more its played they can still win studio of the year at the VGA's. ...But nope.
Dont get me wrong, Skyrim is a great game, but it represents a massive part of whats wrong with video game development today, and Jim is the type of journo you'd expect to point this out, yet it seems he cant see past his plush horned helmet.
Dont get me wrong, Skyrim is a great game, but it represents a massive part of whats wrong with video game development today, and Jim is the type of journo you'd expect to point this out, yet it seems he cant see past his plush horned helmet.
every week with the same environment (red background land) and the same characters (jim) i find my self really endearing to jim and the environments and shall probably sometime in the future get nostalgic. ahhhhhhhhhh.
"Such is the fate of the steak that cannot taste itself." That is deep man. I know I thank God for you every day, Jim Sterling.
Remember those old games that had a very limited environment? Resident Evil also comes to mind. Hell, RE3 used most of the same areas from RE2. And why? Cost saving. There was only so much money to be spent on creating game environments, so any time a developer could reuse existing things or fold the plot multiple times over a single area, the better.
This forced the game designers to get creative. They had to make every area able to function as the place where several story threads could happen over the course of the game. And as a result, we as players gave a crap about these places.
Something that strikes me about Team Fortress 2 is that there are only so many maps. Sure we're getting player submitted ones all the time, but the core maps are limited in number. I've spent a lot of time running around Dustbowl and Badwater Bason. And yet when I look around, the maps don't look like a linear succession of corridors. The designers took the time to add little details in the background that make them look like these places actually served a purpose. There are doors everywhere you can't enter, and windows separating the players from consoles and chairs and break rooms and rows of electric tape for the old style computers.
Sometimes, when I have a moment, I stare into these areas to see what I can notice, and I still notice new details. It feels like I'm fighting just outside of a functional workplace. And despite running around the areas for so long, or even because of it, I love them all the more.
Remember those old games that had a very limited environment? Resident Evil also comes to mind. Hell, RE3 used most of the same areas from RE2. And why? Cost saving. There was only so much money to be spent on creating game environments, so any time a developer could reuse existing things or fold the plot multiple times over a single area, the better.
This forced the game designers to get creative. They had to make every area able to function as the place where several story threads could happen over the course of the game. And as a result, we as players gave a crap about these places.
Something that strikes me about Team Fortress 2 is that there are only so many maps. Sure we're getting player submitted ones all the time, but the core maps are limited in number. I've spent a lot of time running around Dustbowl and Badwater Bason. And yet when I look around, the maps don't look like a linear succession of corridors. The designers took the time to add little details in the background that make them look like these places actually served a purpose. There are doors everywhere you can't enter, and windows separating the players from consoles and chairs and break rooms and rows of electric tape for the old style computers.
Sometimes, when I have a moment, I stare into these areas to see what I can notice, and I still notice new details. It feels like I'm fighting just outside of a functional workplace. And despite running around the areas for so long, or even because of it, I love them all the more.
Yahtzee - 5 Days a Stranger - superb example of what he's talking about, with confined spaces and a growing familiarity. Really need to play it again. The other games in the Chzo Mythos were brilliant too, but I never completed 7 Days a Skeptic (that chase at the end was far too difficult/scary for me! 
)
Monkey Island 3's music and art direction are just second to none. Even if everything else sucked, it would be a fantastic game for those two things nonetheless. But everything else is JUST as fantastic, so that's a bonus hehe
)Monkey Island 3's music and art direction are just second to none. Even if everything else sucked, it would be a fantastic game for those two things nonetheless. But everything else is JUST as fantastic, so that's a bonus hehe